A computer network is a collection of interconnected computing devices that can exchange data and share resources. In a packet-based network, such as an Ethernet network, the computing devices communicate data by dividing the data into variable-length blocks called packets, which are individually routed across the network from a source device to a destination device. The destination device extracts the data from the packets and assembles the data into its original form.
Certain devices, referred to as routers, maintain routing information representative of a topology of the network. The routers exchange routing information so as to maintain an accurate representation of available routes through the network. A “route” can generally be defined as a path between two locations on the network. Upon receiving an incoming data packet, a router examines information within the packet, often referred to as a “key,” to select an appropriate next hop to which to forward the packet in accordance with the routing information.
A variety of routers exist within the Internet. Network Service Providers (NSPs), for example, maintain “edge routers” to provide Internet access and other services to the customers. Examples of services that the NSP may provide include Voice over IP (VoIP), access for Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) or frame relay communications, Internet protocol (IP) data services, and multimedia services, such as video streaming. The edge routers of the NSPs often communicate network traffic to high-speed “core routers,” which may be generally viewed as forming the backbone of the Internet. These core routers often include substantially more processing resources than the edge routers, and are designed to handle high volumes of network traffic.
In some examples, a core router may employ a distributed, multi-stage switch fabric architecture, in which network packets traverse multiple stages of the switch fabric located in distributed forwarding components of the router to travel from an ingress point of to the switch fabric to an egress point of the switch fabric. As one example, a switch fabric may be implemented as a single multi-stage Clos switch fabric, which relays communications across the stages of the switch fabric. As another example, a switch fabric may be implemented as a number of parallel planes, one of which may be treated as a spare plane.
Individual components of the distributed, multi-stage switch fabric may be taken offline, a process referred to as “offlining,” for various reasons such as to replace a component with a new component. When components are offlined while the core router continues to forward packets, packet loss may occur until a new component is installed and operational.